ABOUT

Avid outdoorsman and underwater photographer, Barry Brown has spent the last 12 years documenting life above and below water in Curacao, Netherlands Antilles. He is currently working with the Smithsonian Institution documenting new Caribbean deep-water species and building a one of a kind database. His underwater images can regularly be seen in Sport Diver, Scuba Diver and on the Ikelite website. His image of a "Collage of Corals" seen under blue-light at night recently placed in the TOP 10 images for the 2014 NANPA (North American Nature Photographers Association) photo contest.

Hi friends, here’s something really cool, this is a close-up of the mouth or beak as it’s called of a Caribbean Reef Squid. So many have asked me, “what and how do squid eat”?? This species, like most squid, is a voracious eater and typically consumes 30-60% of its body weight daily. Prey is caught using the club-like end of the long tentacles which are then pulled towards the mouth supported by the shorter arms. Like other cephalopods, it has a strong beak (as you see here) which it uses to cut the prey into parts so that the raspy tongue, or radula, can be used to further process the food. It consumes small fish, other molluscs, and crustaceans. Aimee and I have seen them with little red shrimps in their mouths and fish but trying to get close enough for a photo is close to impossible. As you can see from this cool beak they have to hold their prey and bite off small pieces one bite at a time, they can’t just swallow it so dinner time can sometimes take quite awhile. Anyways something different for my divers out there.

It was a VERY busy day at the Aquarium and at Dolphin Academy today, most of the trainers didn’t even get any lunch as there was no time. Aimee was off today she took the dogs for a fun ocean walk and then came home and went to bed for some much needed sleep.

I am finally heading to Bonaire in a few days for 5 days of diving! I will leave the evening of the 25th if possible and be back the evening of the 30th. And of course I will be staying at Wannadive,the finest resort on the island you can call them if you need to reach me.